Library Collection

Searching the Collection

You can search the library collection from any of five Online Public Access Computers (OPACs) in the Main or Children's Library. You can also search it from any home or Library computer with Internet access.

Collection

The Library Collection consists of more than two million items located at the more than seventy libraries of the SAILS Library Network.
Middleborough itself offers:

Special Collections

Cranberry Collection

The Town of Middleborough is located in the heart of Southeastern Massachusett’s cranberry country; and Middleborough’s Public Library serves as the repository for a collection of materials on the cranberry industry. The Cranberry Collection provides access to photographs, news clippings, weather maps, historic pamphlets and periodicals, and an assortment of unpublished materials. The collection also includes the Blueberry Collection containing published and unpublished materials relating to the Southeastern Massachusetts blueberry industry.

The collection, originally shelved in "quarter barrel cranberry boxes", has been recently arranged and described by archivist Ernestina V. Furtado (a digital finding-aid is available). Funding was provided by the Wilfred M. Silvia Trust. The collection is located in the Wilfred Silvia Genealogy Room on the second floor.

Genealogy Resources

The Wilfred Silvia Genealogy Room provides access to a collection of works on Middleborough history, books about local families, census records, town directories from the previous century, and standard genealogical texts. A Genealogy Room computer provides subscription access to the New England Historical and Genealogical Society resources.

The Digital Collection

As part of its mission to meet the educational, recreational, informational, cultural, and civic needs of its citizens, the Middleborough Public Library strives to make accessible to all an organized and varied collection of materials. These materials include computer and digital resources and services, as well as the more customary books and magazines.

The following historical and genealogical records are now in searchable, digital format. These materials can be accessed at most of the Library's public computers, and can be searched by keyword or name. Text and photo selections can be printed.

The Middleborough Antiquarian. This is the complete collection, running from the February 1959 first edition to the Spring 1998 edition. Includes full text and pictures.

Old Cemeteries of Southeastern Massachusetts. Originally published in book form by the Friends of Middleborough Public Library, this compilation of records by Charles M. Thatcher in the late 1880s includes records of the burials in 214 cemeteries in 15 towns in Plymouth and Bristol counties in Massachusetts. The records extend up to the mid 19th century.

The Walter Thompson Slide Collection. Middleborough history in the form of 1400 annotated images taken from old postcards and photographs.

In addition to these new resources the Library also has genealogical CDs and software available for use in the Wilfred M. Silvia Genealogy Room.